Indigenous Leader Noe Jimenez Assassinated in Chiapas

The bodies of the indigenous leader Noé Jiménez Pablo, member of the state coordination of the Independent Regional Peasant Movement-National Plan Coordinator of Ayala-National Movement (Mocri-CNPA-MN), and an unidentified person, were found in the municipality of Amatán, Chiapas, reported Eric Bautista, a spokesperson for Mocri.

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Jiménez's body was found in a garbage dump located three kilometers from the municipal capital of Amatán, where on Thursday an armed group attacked the sit-in that several Mocri protesters had installed to demand the ousting of the mayor Manuel de Jesús Carpio Mayorga, reported Bautista Gomez

He added that instead the body of another man was found who has not yet been identified because "his face was disfigured by acid and was bagged."

Bautista explained that the men who evicted the plantón with bullets "left the house of the former mayor Wilber Carpio Mayorga", brother of Manuel, "covered with balaclavas, with heavy-caliber rifles and small arms." The attack left two people injured, eight women detained, and 50 people missing, while three vehicles were torched.

Among the wounded was Jiménez Pablo, who was shot in the abdomen and chest, "but the paramilitaries did not allow him to be helped, and shot anyone who came to help him, before finally took him away," Bautista added.

"The brutality with which they killed our comrades reflects the hatred of Jesús Carpio and his cacique group towards our comrade Noé Jiménez Pablo and towards the sympathizers and militants of the Indigenous and Popular Council of Amatán for opposing their cacicazgo, for denouncing their abuses, the use of paramilitary groups to perpetuate themselves in power, the looting of the municipal coffers, and their links with organized crime and drug trafficking," he stressed.

Faced with the facts, the Mocri-CNPA-MN demanded truth and justice for Noé Jiménez, as well as punishment for those responsible for his murder, as well as the dismantling of the paramilitary group of the Capio Mayorga.